Meanwhile, fifty miles away at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, Liberal MPs Carolyn Bennett and John McCallum, Con MPs David Sweet and Ted Opitz, Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell, and former Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein were leading the Canada-Israel Solidarity Rally in singing O Canada and Hatikva on, as JPost put it, "Day 23 of Operation Protective Edge."Con MP Randy Hoback not shown in photo.The Jerusalem Post reported in advance that the event would also include a broadcasted appearance by John Baird. For all I know they may have also broadcast this :The Solidarity Rally Lib/Con MPs and senators did not, needless to say, visit the West Bank, or Gaza where they might have been in danger of being shelled by their hosts..But prior to the group giving their "fact-finding mission" report to the Government of Canada, here are some of their advance observations from the trip.

“How often do you get the chance to get firsthand information about what’s going on in Israel in regards to both the rocket bombs coming out of Gaza and reaction from Israel.”

"It’s very interesting, there’s a lot of things that people don’t understand. Hamas is the issue here, it’s not the Palestinian people. Hamas is a terrorist organization, their whole goal is [getting] Israel off this earth. This group isn’t a group that you can sit down and talk with and negotiate a peace settlement. It isn’t a group that wants to be your friend, they basically want to annihilate Israel which is very sad.

They are willing to put children in front of bombs and willing to put rocket launchers inside of schools and inside of mosques, basically do whatever they have to do to win their so called war. So it makes it tough when they do these things.”

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

That was from five years ago - even the number of casualties is close to the same as now. This was also from five years ago - we've gotten acclimatized to the language spin now but it was greeted with incredulity at the time.Plus ça change ...
.Wednesday update : Tonight, CBC's As It Happensinterviewed Chris Gunness from UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, about the shelling attacks on the UN Jabaliya Elementary Girls School in which 19 people died and another 125 were wounded. The UN has accused Israel of carrying out the attack after being warned 17 times that civilians were seeking shelter there. Gunness said five of his workers have also been killed. In the middle of the interview, CBC played a clip from Israel spokesey Mark Regev (featured in above vid) saying it was actually Hamas that was attacking the UN. Thanks, CBC - because it's really really important to be fair and balanced about the now nearly 1400 Gazan casualties shelled in their outdoor prison by Israel.Regev, as brilliantly deconstructed by Alex Nunns :.

“It’s now chaos, the military is shelling directly at us. There are two patients on the second floor and we think they’re okay, but we can’t move them easily as they’re bed-bound. I’m bleeding from a head wound and there’s another person injured. People are very frightened.”

IDF shells also searched inside an ambulance and a paramedic; neither survived.

This same approach didn't really work out well for the entire border town of Shejaiya either, as people return today during the ceasefire to collect what they can and bodies are pulled from the rubble :

So what kicked off this collective punishment again, as the number of Palestinian dead reaches 1,000?

On June 12, three Israeli teens were kidnapped from an Israeli settlement.

That same day Israeli authorities received a 911 phone call from one of the boys that ended with gunfire and Palestinian security forces reported to Israel that two suspects had disappeared from Hebron within 24 hours of the abduction.

The information about the gunshots on that desperate last phone call was widely known in the media, but as we reported, the Israeli government issued a gag order against these facts being published. And over the last two-and-a-half weeks of June, the Israelis launched extensive raids across the West Bank, locking down Hebron, supposedly to find the boys. But the major focus of the raids was rooting out Hamas affiliates and arresting them. In fact, the purpose of the raids seemed to be to break up the recent unity government between Hamas and Fatah, which Israel has vigorously opposed.

The boys’ bodies were found on June 30, in a shallow grave in the West Bank; and again the deaths were exploited to punish Hamas.

"Each time Hamas had reached an understanding with Israel about a cease-fire, at least one member of the family has been responsible for planning or initiating a suicide attack, and any understandings with Israel, achieved after considerable effort, were suddenly laid waste. If there is a single family throughout the PA territories whose actions can be blamed for Israel’s assassination of the political leadership of Hamas, it is the Qawasmeh family of Hebron.

On Aug. 19, 2003, after a tahadiyeh was reached between Israel and all of the Palestinian factions, with the support of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the No. 2 bus in Jerusalem. Some 23 Israelis were killed in the attack, including seven children. All of the passengers on the bus were on their way back from prayers at the Western Wall to mark the end of the Sabbath. Most of them were yeshiva students. The attack put an abrupt end to the tahadiyeh just 52 days after it was announced ... The Qawasmeh family planned and implemented the attack during a cease-fire, which was supposed to have ended the second intifada, a cease-fire that had the support of Yasser Arafat, then-PA chairman, his Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and, of course, Yassin, the leader of Hamas.

Possible that while both Hamas and Netanyahu have been driven to this most recent carnage by their more extreme and unhinged "affiliates", both are now hoping to gain an edge thereby.So today we are all looking at this man : Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld and his

Operation Protective Edge Yellowcake has levelled cities and murdered over a thousand people to date over what they at least suspected as far back as June 12 had little to do with a PR campaign about Hamas kidnapping and killing the Israeli teens.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Over 20 strong statements from members of the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat parties in UK 10 days ago, even before the most recent Israeli shelling of UN schools and hospitals with one child now being killed in Gaza every hour.Note how these British MPs have vaulted right over the despicable cowardly practice, apparently obligatory among politicians in Canada and the US, of "fair and balanced" mealy-mouthed equating of the occupied and occupier - as if the blockaded and collectively punished people of Gaza (600 dead civilians) are somehow responsible for the security of their occupiers in Israel (2 dead civilians) with its Iron Dome and $3billion a year in US aid.Yes, and while we're at it, when will the Canadian media show this kind of guts? Jon Snow, Channel Four :.

Monday, July 21, 2014

.Sixty or so pix of Free Gaza protests from all over the world including Israel. There's a lot more of course but here's rather more than I'm seeing from our nervous media who continue to nervously cling to the fiction that the occupied and the occupier are somehow equal combatants in "cutting the grass".Meanwhile, Steve is now standing around up to his armpits in fire and water with Netanyahu and the Israeli rightwingnuts in his coalition, who have just today shelled a Gazan hospital for the third time in a week, thus ensuring that even more enraged and dispossessed Gazan youngsters will grow up hating and ultimately targeting Israel. And so it goes ...July 27 Update : Annie Robbins is still updating with dozens of new ones : Sarajevo, Taipei, Limpopo, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Karachi, Auckland, Maldives, Iceland, Frankfurt, Houston ..... .

Monday, July 14, 2014

A month ago, former MP and Liberal leadership contender Martha Hall Findlay had a piece in the G&M : Northern Gateway : You don't build a nation by saying 'No"in which she echoed Tarsands Minister Joe Oliver in invoking pipelines as "nation-building" projects similar to building the "national railway and the St. Lawrence Seaway". Nation-building is apparently no longer about bringing people together in economic resilience but now consists of petrocorps getting their toxic unrefined bitumen to China as quickly and easily as possible. What you may not have known because the G&M failed to mention it is that MHF was writing as a member of an insiders corporate PR group spun off from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce calledPartnership for Resource Trade and its website Power of Canada [powerofcanada.ca]. If you want to hear even more about the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Saint Lawrence Seaway as precursors of nation-building pipelines and how the resource sector is the "front lines of environmentalism" - these are your go-to guys.Power of Canada Advisory Council Members include Perrin Beatty, David Emerson, John Manley, Kevin Lynch, Ted Menzies, MHF of course, and reps from CAPP, TransCanada, Enbridge, Rio Tinto, Teck, Suncor, TransAlta, CD Howe, BMO, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Mining Association of Canada, Port Metro Vancouver,etc. etc.While you're there you can sign up to pledge your support and add your sig to a petition to MPs : "I believe in the Power of Canada".As the Canadian Chamber of Commerce put it in a letter to their local branches :

"Through the Partnership for Resource Trade, we want to recruit and empower local champions ... and add your voices and passion to the public debate. In coming days we will provide more tools that can help you and your members become involved in the dialogue. I encourage you to visit the web site powerofcanada.ca."

Here's two local champions who took the pledge and signed up at Power of Canada :Cody Battershill, Calgary, ABWyatt Webster, Surrey, BCAs I've mentioned before, Wyatt Webster co-wrote a pro-pipeline op ed in the Vancouver Sun with Christopher Wilson in June where they advised readers to check out their own grassroots website, Canada Action - "Support Northern Gateway", which in turn also signs up supporters - including Bruce Lounds of the pro-pipeline astroturf group British Columbians for Prosperity.Sample Canada Action supporter comment :"The Northern Gateway pipeline is a nation building project, every bit as important as building the St Lawrence Seaway"Here Canada Action is seen staging, in Cody Battershill aka codyincalgary's words, an "Awesome Pro-Resource, Pro-Pipeline" counter-protest at the "No Enbridge" rally in Vancouver in May - with massive professional-looking banners and a special surprise visit from tarsands advocate Ezra Levant. Wilson and Webster state in their Vancouver Sun op ed : "Are we financially supported by a company, an association or a charitable foundation? No."The first comment under the article is from Cody Battershill aka codyincalgary :

"Why is Canada the only top oil reserve country targeted with such sophisticated, well financed and coordinated opposition?"

Sigh. We're obviously going to have to massively redefine "grassroots" and "astroturf" before this is over.

Real News Network interviews Shir Hever, an Israeli economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center - a Palestinian-Israeli organization - on how Israeli security companies are using the occupation of Gaza to market the tools of occupation to other countries :

HEVER: "Israel is now the world capital of homeland security industries. They're selling security cameras, surveillance equipments, drones, riot gear. That is the sort of technology that governments need in order to control their citizens. And it comes not just with the actual technology; it comes also with an ideology. It comes with the ideology that, look what Israel is doing, how Israel is controlling Palestinians and every aspect of their lives, and decides who can pass and who gets a permit and so on, and uses this technology to leave Palestinians no option to resist, and why don't we sell that to other governments around the world.

So, obviously, these security companies' business model is built on the occupation. These are companies that their motto when they go to arms trade shows and show their equipment, they say, this has already been tested by the Israeli army on actual people. You can only have that because of the occupation. So every new weapon is first sold to the Israeli army, shot at Palestinians. Then you can sell it.

After this invasion of Gaza that we were talking about [Operation Cast Lead], there was a trade show that the Israeli army did where they showed how each and every of these new inventions were used in the attack on Gaza, completely shamelessly.

The attacks become demos, and these companies make a profit out of it, and then these companies are hiring senior Israeli officials. I don't think that means that they want to end the peace process or sabotage the peace process; it means they want to continue it forever, because as long as it continues, they can continue these periodic attacks and they can continue the occupation.

JAY: Yeah, 'cause the peace process is a process of never coming to an agreement about peace.

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

This past February, Kathryn Marshall, former spokesy for Ethical Oil, and Brittany Allison, Interim Executive Director of British Columbians For Prosperity, had a "girls night" at a West Vancouver restaurant.

For all their concern about foreign funding, neither Velshi nor Marshall ever answered repeated media questions about whether Enbridge or any other Canadian corporate interest was backing Ethical Oil. Ironically, at the timeEnbridge's chair and 5 out of 12 directors were American.Kathryn's 'girls night' buddy, Brittany Allison, also maintains a focus on shadowy foreign funding from her perch at BC4P moneytrail.ca :

"During an ill-fated run for vice-president in 1980, David Koch campaigned on a platform that promoted destruction of the social welfare system, repeal of taxation and an end to public education, children’s services, government medical care, minimum wage laws and environmental regulation.But through the Kochs’ persistence and lavish funding, their libertarian ideas are now part of the Republican Party’s agenda, and they have helped to change the face of America.Founding or funding groups like the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the American Enterprise Institute and the State Policy Network — which acts as a seed bank for dozens of others — the Kochs gradually inched across the political landscape.

In Canada, Koch’s presence in the oil sands has set environmentalists’ teeth on edge as the brothers back U.S. climate skeptics, tout fossil fuels and oppose the Obama administration’s environmental agenda."

The Kochtopus with its unfettered free market oil-friendly political tentacles winding

"into the mainstream through the tea party and "dark money" political coalitions that allow donors to shield their identity while funding attack ads "

We are a media company national in scope but community-focused. Canadians know our brands, trust our content, and welcome us as a vital member of their communities.

CAPP's messaging will extend to our massive mobile and tablet network so that vital energy information is never more than a click away. Our print coverage will include weekly energy editorial across our entire newspaper chain*, along with monthly joint ventures and quarterly special reports on subjects CAPP needs to bring to the forefront of Canadian consciousness."

Here's a few of the last two weeks' crop of Postmedia stories that "CAPP needs to bring to the forefront of Canadian consciousness". If you only scanned the headlines, you might mistake them for actual news :

Globe executives want to monetize the integrity and reputations of The Globe and Mail’s journalists – the same award-winning reporters and editors that management proudly (and rightly) claims are vital to the enterprise’s future as a powerful, independent, fearless and profitable news organization.

Under the company proposal, editorial staff would be assigned to write or produce advertiser sponsored “branded content” (i.e. native advertising) that is vetted by the advertiser prior to publication and held out to readers as staff-written content.
That content cannot offend a paying advertiser’s specific opinions and corporate interests or it will be changed.

This proposal was presented to us by editorial management and has been vetted by the Editor-in-Chief.

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Not your NDP Candidate

"I would like to thank you all for your support and encouragement for my bid for the nomination to be the NDP candidate for the new federal riding of Nanaimo-Ladysmith. It is with regret that I write to tell you that the federal NDP has refused to allow me to stand as a candidate.

The local riding executive approved my candidacy for the nomination but the NDP National Director, Ann McGrath, has not approved me and the federal NDP executive will not let me stand as a candidate."

Since then he's worked in his community for healthcare, First Nations rights, and marched to end violence against women.

His 2013 doc Troubled Watersexposes the dangers to public watersheds in Canada from private ownership, privatization, P-3s, groundwater contamination, and international trade agreements. Great film - well worth your time - and inspirational as so much of what he documents is farmers and treeplanters leading the way to protection of our water.

He's a well-known grassroots community guy working for the public good in his community long before his attempt to represent it in the next election.

So what exactly about this guy isn't good enough for the NDP? Ah, here we go ...

That's his dad, 79 year old former Vancouver Island NDP MP Jim Manly, onboard the Swedish ship Estelle bound for Gaza in 2012 with humanitarian aid, shortly before it was boarded in international waters by an Israeli security team and all 30 crew members were arrested and detained in Israel.

“It would be nice to hear some politicians speak out in support of a retired Member of Parliament who has stuck his neck out to help people in a less fortunate part of the world,” Paul said. “It’s kind of shocking that nobody’s said anything.”

"I have not received a written reason for this refusal and was told I will not receive a written reason. I was told verbally on the phone, that the reason was in relation to “what I said and did when my father was in Israel.” There was also concern that I was running to make Israel and Palestine an election issue.

Israel and Palestine is an issue my parents are focused on, it has not been a focus for me except for the week when my father was seized illegally in international waters and held incommunicado in an Israel prison. This was not going to be an election issue on my platform."

He ends by quoting approvingly from the NDP policy book on Israel and Gaza.

So WTF?, NDP. You may not owe Paul Manly an explanation, according to your own nomination rules, but you sure as hell owe the rest of us one.

I see a note on his FB page from CBC's Rosie Barton asking him to get in touch. Hope he does.

Update : The Star and CBC both have stories about this now. Nothing new in them except the CBC quotes from NDP Brad Lavigne's book on "bozo eruptions" and the Star says Manly alleges he was blocked "due to his comments on Israel". Fuck you both.

.

"Now, it's questionable whether a single instance of past public disappointment with a party should ever be considered a reasonable basis for rejecting a candidate. In fact, a standard of "no past public criticism of one's party ever" seems sure to turn away anybody who has spoken up on any issue other than as a party cheerleader - limiting the pool of candidates either to people who have refused to serve as public advocates for their principles, or those who don't hold any principles strongly enough to speak up in their defence.

Manly's rejection in turn followed a similar story in New Brunswick. There, provincial candidate Chris Rendell had his nomination approval revoked for the apparent offence of clicking "like" on a single Facebook post praising the province's Green Party leader."

"[Rendell] said NDP officials showed him a Facebook page where Rendell clicked “like” to a post supporting Green Party Leader David Coon.

"The Facebook comment was made by Hugh Duncan Brown, who said: “Thank you, David Coon. This is how to fight for the people of New Brunswick. You have my vote as long as you don't have any posters of war criminals on your office wall.”

Rendell and seven other people clicked, “Like,” under the Facebook post.

The party cites Rendell’s Facebook "Like" as the reason why he is no longer a party candidate.

“I can tell you that the decision to not disqualify Chris was genuine until days ago when the liking of the offensive post was noticed. The fact is if Chris had not liked that post on June 21, he would still be eligible as a candidate right now despite whatever interest in running arose from any other person,” according to Tony Sekulich, the director of communications for the NDP."

Saturday 5th : Ok, this is really not on. On CBC's The House this morning, at the 43 minute mark, Terry Milewski said :

"The by-elections of course weren't the only unfortunate news, to put it politely, for the NDP this week. You know there was a nomination issue in Nanaimo, wasn't there, with the candidate Paul Manly who was blocked. He's the son of a former NDP MP and he says he was blocked as a candidate by the NDP executive because of his anti-Israel views. It seems he blames Israel - not Hamas which runs Gaza - for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza so I'm wondering if there's still an anti-Israel streak in the NDP which keeps popping up despite Tom Mulcair's efforts to stamp it out."

An utterly unfair interpretation of Manly's position on ending the illegal blockade of Gaza, which, incidentally, happens to be the official NDP position also.